


What Have I Done

by bakuGoAway



Category: X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men: First Class (Comics)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-12
Updated: 2018-11-12
Packaged: 2019-08-22 17:23:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16602335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bakuGoAway/pseuds/bakuGoAway
Summary: A take on the scene in which Charles is paralyzed, from Erik's perspective.





	What Have I Done

_Burning, seething, white hot rage._

 

Erik's hand shook as he manipulated the missiles back at their originators, embracing the ancient, liquid energy that had coursed through him countless times before. As though through cotton, he could hear the others screaming for him to stop, that those men were innocent.

 

Pure confusion washed over him when he felt the first bullet ping off his helmet, before being replaced once more with the insatiable rage he felt for all humans. Bullet after bullet he deflected, sending them ricocheting away from himself. In his mental map of where to send the bullets, Erik was under the impression that Charles was still on the ground where he had left him, and time stood still as he felt the course of the metal shard stopped by Charles' spinal cord.

 

_Fear and grief, not felt like this for twenty years._

 

Not unlike one of Charles' mental manipulations, Erik truly believed that sound had fallen away, and time had ground to a screeching halt as he watched the only person who mattered drop to the sand. He wasted no less than a millisecond before scrambling through the space between them, desperately clutching Charles' body and wrenching the bullet from his spine, as though that would fix the irreparable damage.

 

"I said get back!" Erik screamed, flinging the others aside by their harnesses as the remaining missiles detonated harmlessly over the ocean. Winter sky eyes zeroed in on the hand attached to the trigger, and Erik's blood turned to ice.

 

_Frozen, cold hatred like nothing felt before._

 

"You. You did this." The words tore themselves from Erik's throat as though it hurt, and the archaic power flowed to his fingertips as Agent MacTaggert's dogtags rose to strangle her. 

 

_It's what she deserves. She did this. She did this. **She did this.**_

 

"No, Erik. She didn't do this. You did." Erik almost didn't let the words register, far too focused on ending the insignificant life that had forever altered the life of his Charles. When they did, however, Erik's heart, hands, and eyes dropped, and irises the color of the sea stared back at him with a sorrow that seemed eternal.

 

"I want you by my side, Charles. We want the same thing." Even as he spoke the words, Erik knew they weren't true.

 

"No, my friend, we don't." Tears rolled down Erik's cheek and mingled with those already on Charles' face. "We never have."

 

_Searing, broken loss, like the death of a loved._

 

With a numbness he couldn't explain, Erik waved the others on, and absently handed Charles off to MacTaggert. His chest now curiously feeling as though he were drowning, Erik rose and stalked away from the only happiness he had found since the loss of his mother all those years ago.

 

_Emptiness._


End file.
